After many years of cooking for family, friends and for cooking lessons at Toscana Mia, I am always obsessed with the dessert problem. In what sense? In a typical Italian meal the dessert is the finale and therefore much awaited but at the end of a typical Italian meal we cannot think of offering a dessert that is too heavy because we are not able to appreciate it. A dessert served alone for a complex breakfast, or for an afternoon tea and not to mention a dessert at a party, it can be something complex and rather “filling”. But a dessert at the end of a traditional Italian meal must be pleasant to the taste, refreshing but not excessive.

So a panna cotta, a gelato, an EVOO cake are helpful but they don’t have that visual impact of beautiful party cakes. And  “l’occhio vuole la sua parte”(the eye wants its part),as we say in Italian.

I learned to be satisfied with an extra note, a bit of gelato next to the cake, some pieces of dark chocolate, an edible flower, some salted caramel, some coral decoration and some cocoa crumble. I liked this preparation because it is possible to prepare them any time in advance, keep it in a glass container and use it on occasion.

I would therefore like to propose it to you, easy, quick but able to give that extra touch of chocolate to any dessert, from panna cotta to cake.

                                 Cocoa Crumble

Serving for 12 glasses  panna cotta or 1 Tiramisu or on top of a cake

Ingredients

  • 75 g (2.5 ounces)butter
  • 75 g (3/8 cups)caster sugar
  • 10 g (0.3 ounces)unsweetened cocoa
  • 110 g(3.8 ounces)(3.4 cups) flour 00/all purpose/regular flour or also GF flour
  • a pinch of fine salt

Preparation

  1. Soften the butter.
  2. In a bowl work flour, cocoa, butter and sugar with your fingertips until crumbs are obtained.
  3. Place the crumbs in a baking dish, covered with parchment paper,
  4. cook for 10 minutes at 180 ° /350 °F.
  5. Let them cool
  6. Use them for decoration

 Before serving your dessert place the crumble on top of it.

Crunchy and  chocolate taste  is well preserved.

Tip:serving  a panna cotta you can place the crumble in the glass, pour the panna cotta and then have the crumble on top,too.

For morning breakfast, this crumble can substitute cereals

Give this cocoa crumble a try !There is no better thing than a chocolate,crunchy crumble.